Christmas Traditions or What I'll Read Over Christmas

I don't have many Christmas traditions-my mother has enough for me with decorating the tree, putting out the beat-up Nativity scene, setting up the Dickens Village and getting into fights with every member of the family. And while I love Christmas lights and a big tree, there's no way I'll do it in my apartment. The most I'll do is make cookies and buy gifts-I'm just too lazy to put up the lights anything else-the thought of me wrestling a tree into the Jeep and then getting it into my apartment makes me shudder-and a fake tree is just wrong. I'm okay with all of that as I'll get the whole Christmas scene at my parents' house. But I do have one tradition that I started about 10 years ago-I read Traveling With the Dead by Barbara Hambly. Hambly has written many different kinds of books-usually more towards the fantasy side of fiction than hard sci-fi-but Traveling With the Dead is a pure vampire story. I love vampire stories-from Interview With the Vampire (good), The Vampire Lestat (this may be Rice's best book) and Queen of the Damned (I really like it) to funny vampire books (Undead and Unwed and Bloodsucking Fiends are really funny books) to the historical novels of Chelsea Quinn Yarbro. Traveling has much in common with Yarbro's books, in that they are both very historical and main vampire in it can be a sympathetic figure-but Hambly makes the story her own and owes very little any other writer. Traveling is the story of James and Lydia Asher-James the former spy in Her Majesty's Service, who had to quit after he was forced to shoot a 16 year old boy who otherwise would have turned him in as a spy and Lydia-the heiress who defied her father to become a doctor. Disinherited for marrying the middle class James, she nonetheless got all the money after her father died and didn't change the will in time. Set in the early part of the 20th century and spanning a great deal of the European continent, James and Lydia have run into vampires before, in the previous book, Those who Hunt the Night (good but not great). In this book, James is returning from family business when he sees the enemy (in this case an agent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) speaking with a man he knows to be a vampire. In an instant, he decides he must follow them-what if the enemy has found a way to make vampires work for them? The spy in him could never let that happen, despite having given up service to the Crown 10 years ago. And so the tale begins-James follows Karolyi (the enemy) and Ernchester (the vampire) to France, Austria and Turkey, all the while traveling with Ernchester's wife-also a vampire many years old. And in pusuit is Lydia, who believes James is walking into a trap. She has enlisted the help of Don Simon Ysidro, also a vampire many years old, who owes her husband a favor for helping him in the previous book. Hambly has a way with words-her descriptions of Vienna and the surrounding woods are lush and beautiful, the vampires are seductive and gorgeous, humans are petrified and determined. Despite all the physical traveling that happens, the greatest journies in this book are the ones that happen internally. James discovers that he can't leave being a spy behind-and that's okay as it saves his life. Lydia learns that she can just about anything she wants if she puts her mind to it-from traveling with a vampire or saving her husband. And the vampires themselves learn who really wants to live and who is ready for death.

It's hard to say why I feel the need to re-read this book every year at Christmas. Maybe it's that I like the ending-which in it's own way, is just as confusing as Funeral in Berlin. Every time I read the ending, I have the same reaction-which is "what? Who is the bad guy? Have we seen him before? And is Simon really in love with Lydia? and did the traveling companion forced upon her by Simon in order to giver respectability-did she really sell her out? And did Simon really fall in love with her?" The answer to the last question is yes, all the others have a pretty ambiguous answer and I like that. And why at Christmas? No answer for that-I read it for the first time at Christmas and decided to re-read it the next year, so maybe that started it. I know it's strange but I have no explanation.

Also, I'm almost done with The Bridge of Birds. I can't say it's fantasy-it bills itself as "a novel of an ancient China that never was" and it's great. It's NOT historical but it is really well written great story with many moments that are pretty funny. I don't like fantasy but this isn't twee or precious but it is entertaining and intelligent. There are two books that follow it-my friend Y who recommended it has promised me one of them in early january and I'm looking forward to seeing him AND reading the book (seeing him tops the book, just so you know). And I had to pick out the books i wanted to read while on vacation-yes, it took me longer to pick the books than pick my clothes and I love clothes. But I've whittled it down to 20 and I'll weed from there. Better too many book than too few-I'd hate to get stuck reading my parents' books (they actually have good taste in books except for the times my mother tries to get me to read chick lit) when I have so many that I WANT to read.

More posts later on what I decided to take with me (books, not clothes)